Dublin March for Choice

'North is next’: fresh fight for grassroots power that beat Ireland abortion ban
Women who rallied across borders to win referendum have their sights set on Northern Ireland and northern Australia

Melissa Davey
Fri 1 Jun 2018

Just a few years ago, the Abortion Rights Campaign in Ireland was predominantly active in the capital of Dublin. By the time a landslide 66.4% of the country voted on 25 May to repeal the eighth amendment and give women easier access to abortion, the Abortion Rights Campaign had 36 offshoot groups outside the capital, including in counties where Catholicism and conservatism are deeply entrenched.

The Dublin-based organiser for the Abortion Rights Campaign, Cathie Shiels, knows how hard it is to stand in the middle of a remote Irish-Catholic town holding up a placard advocating for abortion reform. She comes from Donegal, close to the Northern Ireland border and the only county that voted “No” in the referendum.

As Ireland prepares to hold a May referendum on the Irish constitution’s anti-abortion amendment, the youth vote is front and centre of the debate – and young activists on both sides are gearing up for a fight.

A previous national referendum in 1983 approved the Irish constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which recognised an unborn child’s right to life. Women who have an abortion in Ireland can face up to 14 years in prison – leading thousands of women each year to seek to terminate their pregnancies in England and Wales.

Differences on abortion expose deep divisions in Sinn Féin
Urban-rural divide among party members crystallises in relation to eighth amendment

Sat, Oct 21, 2017
Harry McGee

Thousands of people took part in the March for Choice in Dublin in September, a protest that was filled with banners of all types, but mostly from parties of the declared left.

Solidarity and People Before Profit were prominent. So, too, were the Labour Party, the Greens and the Social Democrats. However, the complete absence of leading Sinn Féin personalities, or, indeed, the party’s banners was striking.

How Dublin's March for Choice was reported around the world
Reuters, the New York Times and French newspaper Le Monde covered the demonstration.
Oct 1, 2017

WHAT DID THE world’s media make of Ireland’s pro-choice march yesterday?

When Leo Varadkar was ordained as Taoiseach in June, we saw Ireland repeatedly referred to in foreign news outlets as an insular, conservative, Catholic nation.

After the success of the Yes Equality campaign, and with an ethnically diverse, young, gay man chosen as Ireland’s political leader (albeit not by the electorate), that world view of Ireland could be in the process of shifting.

The Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland is in full support of the protests in Brussels on the 28th September demanding a guaranteed, free, and accessible access to abortion across Europe. The EU has stood by idly while the bodily autonomy of pregnant people continues to be violated by some member states including Ireland and Malta. It has similarly done nothing while other member states progressively attack reproductive rights based on the political whimsy of the controlling parties of ever-increasing conservative governments. We hope the this mobilisation will demonstrate the united commitment to reproductive freedom for all. ---- We stand with you in spirit as we prepare for our own mobilisation on the 30th of September for the Dublin March for Choice and it appears almost certain a constitutional referendum to remove the ban on abortion next summer. The text that follows is our position paper on abortion rights agreed by WSM national conference this summer.

Thousands attend Dublin abortion rights protest
March for Choice is first major march since timeframe of referendum unveiled
Sat, Sep 30, 2017
Ronan McGreevy, Ciarán D'Arcy

Thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday calling for the liberalisation of Ireland’s abortion laws.

The demonstration began at the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm and progressed down O’Connell Street, before turning onto the quays and crossing over the Liffey. From there it proceeded up Pearse Street and towards the rally area in Merrion Square.

Abortion campaigners tell Government what they really, really want
March for Choice: ‘Free, safe, legal’ is the slogan as thousands muster in Dublin
Sat, Sep 30, 2017
Ronan McGreevy

Abortion is a black and white issue. Those Repeal jumpers, designed in anger last year by campaigner Anna Cosgrave, have become a ubiquitous fashion and political statement.

On Saturday lunchtime there were thousands of them in evidence. Those elemental colours, symbolising darkness and light, stood out against the bright shafts of sunlight glinting on the ornamental pool in the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square in Dublin.